RunA couple weeks ago, I saw on my gym’s website that they were going to do a 4 week fitness bootcamp that was 5 days a week, 60-90mins per day with a trainer for $200. I had seen it several times and decided I should just sign up and do it – maybe it would kick my lazy butt back into fitness mode. I went to the gym on Friday 8/3 and signed up for the 4:30pm class that was supposed to start on Monday 8/6. I was really excited because I would only have to leave for work at 5:45am instead of leaving at 4:45am to work out and I would get home around 6:45 (only 30-45mins later than usual).

On Sunday 8/5 (the day before it was supposed to start), I got a voicemail from the trainer saying that a few of the other people doing the bootcamp where having schedule conflicts and really wanted to push the class back a week. So I said “fine, I can start 8/13 instead of 8/6” but I was a little disappointed to have to wait another week for it to start. Then on Thursday 8/9 I called the trainer and left a message that we would be starting on Monday 8/13 at 4:30pm. Well…he called me back and said that they were still starting on 8/13 but they could only do 7:30am and weren’t doing 4:30pm anymore. Bummer! I can’t do the 7:30am because then I would end up being 2.5 – 3 hrs late for work and have to stay until 8pm which means I wouldn’t get home until 9pm. So I decided to switch from the bootcamp to a 5k Training Program which is a running and plyometric group that meets twice a week at 6am for eight weeks and includes registration to an October 5k for $100 total. The first day was yesterday but unfortunately I stayed up too late with Kayla crafting and couldn’t get out of bed in time. I didn’t want to skip my run completely so I met my co-worker Steven at one of the bridges after work. Steven was going to do a 6 mile loop that includes two causeways. I knew I couldn’t run that far right now without stopping but my plan was to run as much of it as I could and walk the other parts but still do the whole loop. It didn’t exactly work out that way, LOL. The heat index was one hundred degrees and there was no breeze or shade – and of course I forgot to bring water or music or a hat or anything else that would have made the run a little easier. After a mile I was exhausted and had to stop and walk some and after a mile and a half I gave up and turned around – I even had to walk most of the way back. My legs were jello, my foot was pounding (might be time for new shoes) and I was super hot and dehydrated. When I was walking back to my car, I saw another one of my co-workers (Alan) who offered to buy me a water and a beer at the bar near where we parked. So I left Steven a note that we were out on the patio having a beer and went over to the riverside bar and cooled off while drinking water and a beer. Overall it was a tough jog but having someone to meet me there and then getting to chit chat as we cooled down motivated me to schedule another one next week (although we might do it before work instead of after, we’ll see). I am definitely going to try to make it to the 5k Training program run tomorrow and hopefully keep meeting with them twice a week for the next 8 weeks. If I do that, meet Steven for a bridge loop once a week and eat a little healthier then maybe I will start to get back in shape and lose a little bit of this excess weight so I don’t get too fat for my dress.Stitch I was hoping to finish Danielle’s quilt this week during the weeknights but it hasn’t been going so well. On Monday night, I was helping Kayla figure out how to use the embroidery machine so I was only quilting a little bit. But I still managed to get about 75% of the quilting done before I had the thread break. Once the machine starts having thread issues it can take a little while to get it worked out so I decided that was a good stopping point for the night. Kayla did several samples on the embroidery machine using some scrap tshirt fabric I had. The first run we just used the white embroidery thread I used and it came out pretty well. Next Kayla tried to use some metallic wound embroidery thread but we must have been doing something wrong because the thread kept unwinding and breaking. So Kayla switched to white embroidery thread in the bobbin and then a pink cotton top thread and it seemed to be working pretty well. Kayla decided she was ready to try out her design on one of the onesies she bought for her cousin’s daughter. She stretched it over the hoop, set it up and started stitching. But when I came back in to check on her, the machine had knotted the thread below the throat plate and sucked the fabric in there too. We had to cut the shirt out of the embroidery machine! After that we decided to call it quits for the night. Tuesday night, I worked on fixing my thread issue and I thought I got it fixed but after quilting half a row it broke again and now it looks like there is a thread caught in the race and I can’t figure out how to get it out. I may need to go through the manual to see if there are any other removable parts so I can make sure I don’t have any loose threads caught down there. Kayla was still having trouble even after we had carefully rethreaded the machine several times and tried a few other things so I suggested she switch to a fusible interfacing instead of the regular embroidery interfacing to help keep the shirt from stretching. It worked! She was able to finish what she wanted to embroider “Practically Perfect in every way” and I gave her some craft fuse and puffy paint so she could cut out a little kite to iron on the shirt and then outline and draw a tail with the paint. I hope she puts up pics of the finished product because it should be really cute! Unfortunately I couldn’t get my thread issue fixed so it’s still waiting for me when I get home tonight. I REALLY want to get her quilt done and get some progress made on Emmy’s quilt this weekend so I am not too rushed with Victoria’s quilt. As Kayla was learning how the bobbin thread and top thread work together, I remembered I have this neat little graphic that shows a little more about how a sewing machine works, check it out:

Wed Sunday night, Ryan helped me finish up the invitations so we could mail them out, yay! I took them to the post office on Monday and sent them out and I know by yesterday all our Florida friends and family had already gotten them in the mail. I would bet everyone else will get theirs by the end of the week too. So now it’s a waiting game. There are still numerous more friends and family that we want to invite but we don’t want to run out of seats at the venue so we have to wait until some people say “no” before we can invite a few more. Want to take bets on the RSVPs? Who will be the first person to respond and who will be last? What percentage of people will accept and say they are coming? What percentage of people will never reply to the RSVP? If you’re already married, what was it like at your wedding? Did you have a lot of people come who you weren’t expecting and/or a lot of people decline that you thought would come? Sometime before the wedding I’ll post the answer to those questions for my wedding Today I’m trying to finish up a sample “favor/placecard” and then if I like how they come out, my mom and I will make them all this weekend. I’m hoping mom and I can also nail down the reception decorations and figure out what our “grand exit” should be or if we’re even going to do anything at the end of the reception. The bridesmaids are busy planning the bridal shower and bachelorette party. I think 2 of the 5 girls have bought their bridesmaid dresses for the wedding and three still need to order them. Three of the girls will need to fly in for the bridal shower/bachelorette and for the wedding. I think Ash bought her flight for the shower but I’m not sure about Amanda. Gwen bought her tickets but accidentally booked the wrong weekend so now she’s trying to figure out how to work it out without losing a bunch of money. We have a date set for the shower and bachelorette and the girls are working out the shower details but we still haven’t figured out what we want to do for the bachelorette party. Lastly, Ryan and I still need to decide on our honeymoon location. Rusty offered to let us have their timeshare week that is going to expire at the end of this year at Oyster Bay Beach Resort in St. Maarten. We were looking at going to the Caribbean anyways but we need to decide if we want to stay there or not – the resort had REALLY mixed reviews. Some good and some awful. I think we might just risk it based on the good reviews and since it would be free lodging for a week.